In the mountains where our younger son skis, the ice is three metres thick. Conditions were excellent for skiing last Wednesday when he was out on Mount Seymour, he said, a really lovely, crisp and sunny day and the snow conditions were beyond criticism. Yesterday he wore his drysuit and took his kayak out again at Wreck Beach, where he said the ocean was choppy but nowhere near as much so as it had been a week earlier. Harbour seals are scarce now, but they'll soon be returning, to pop up around his kayak, wondering what's going on.

It's quite a different story here. In Ottawa, it's been a challenge to prepare the Rideau Canal for its annual winter skating conditions, and this will likely turn out to be the worst year for skating on the canal, given our El Nino winter having brought milder winter conditions.

We can't recall when last the snowpack in the ravine has been so low. On only one previous occasion can we remember a December without snow, as occurred this winter. The good thing about this milder winter, is where minus-6 C for the high of the day has allowed us to get out with Jackie and Jillie without having to pull their winter boots on for protection against the cold. Any colder than that and their tiny paws freeze up.

We've had a spate of contradictory weather conditions, mild days following icy and windy cold ones, so that a thaw-and-freeze cycle has set in. When my husband took the household waste out to the curb last night for this morning's pick-up, the street lamps shed their light on the surrounding lawns with their untouched blanket of snow. The snow lawns are completely covered in a layer of ice, the light glinting off the ice quite exquisitely.

When we're in the ravine and the afternoon sun slants brilliantly onto the forest floor, there is a vast icefield where normally a puffed-snow blanket would be. When Jackie ventures off the trampled trail of hard-packed snow, he slides and slithers everywhere. Our concern is that if he does that when we're up on one of the colls between valleys, he'll just slip down completely and then be confused when he discovers himself to have slid far from where we happen to be, up above.

Because of the prevailing ice underfoot, it takes a foolhardy soul to venture into the ravine without a good pair of hefty cleats strapped securely over winter boots. The result has been that we don't see many people out and about in the ravine of late. We haven't had a good, hefty snowfall in weeks, only desultory light snow drifts down from time to time.

No complaints, however, merely observing.